Patent Application DE 100 57 674.5 (corresponding to U.S. Ser. No. 10/004,297) assigned to the present assignee and herein incorporated by reference, relates to the determining of an actual steering angle through measuring the travel of a steering gear rack. The present invention envisages to be used in much more universal fields of application where often no such rack would be present, and furthermore, in particular to save appreciably on the costs of external electronic chips. Notably, earlier determinations of the orientation angle took place through using an external electronic facility, in the form of an integrated circuit chip.